Even with the (hack spit) blogosphere, news doesn't always travel fast enough for my liking. I only just found out that the fabulous writer John M Ford died on September 24th. He was a rare gem, every one of his handful of novels a finely crafted whole. His The Dragon Waiting (1983) remains his best and most widely appreciated work, though his Star Trek tie-ins plainly took him much further in terms of sales. There remains a special place in my own geek heart, though, for his "Paranoia" RPG supplement, the legendary Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, truly the work of a genuinely twisted mind. -- marco